QUESTION: As long as we’re on the subject of pies — and we are on the subject of pies, are we not? — have you happened to come across a chicken pot pie remotely as good as the ones they used to serve at Ship’s. I’ve tried the pies at Moffet’s, Broadway Deli and Musso & Frank, and I’ve even driven down to Anaheim to try the pies at La Palma, but nothing has quite approached the rude, gravy-drenched frankness of the version that the sainted Mr. Shipman apparently took with him to his grave.

—Rhonda, Calabasas

 

ANSWER: Personally, I kind of like Musso & Frank’s chicken pot pie, although I realize that it is less a true, Midwestern-style pie than a fancy chicken stew capped with an even fancier lid of puff pastry, a sort of poule au pot en croute. (The restaurant didn’t spend 50 years under the direction of the late Jean Rue, Our Chef From Paris, France, for nothing.)

But Sumi Chang’s chicken pot pies at her Pasadena lunch bistro, Euro Pane, are extraordinary — chunks of juicy, well-herbed bird cooked with farmers-market vegetables, lightly bound and encased in buttery, flaky pastry that ranks among the best pie crusts in California. And at just $5.95, they cost a small fraction of what the pies at Musso’s will run you. But there is a catch. Well, two. Euro Pane doesn’t serve martinis. And Ms. Chang only bakes a few chicken pot pies each day, which means you either have to get to lunch really early — like breakfast time — or call and reserve one in advance. Euro Pane, 950 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, (626) 577-1828.

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